I've had a lot on my mind lately. So in an effort to temporarily forget about much of it, I went out last night.
My friend Keef had just gotten off work, and he was ready to drink as well. Plus, it was opening night in the NBA, so if we had nothing to talk about, we at least had something to watch.
Well, we always have something to talk about.
The medicinal power of mind over matter. We're both big believers in this. Everyone around us is sick, it would seem. But we're not getting sick. We can't get sick. Our jobs and our minds won't let us. Maybe it's the drinking that keeps us well. A pint of Guinness is good for you, ya know.
Racist traffic reports. It would seem that in St. Louis, a certain well-listened-to AM radio station, during their traffic reports, will not encourage its whiter, often older listeners, to take a detour through "the 'hood" to avoid traffic snarls. It would rather queue up its loyal listeners on I-70 than direct them through, say, Wellston, where carjackings may or may not be an hourly occurence. The key word is "seem". We have no way of proving this, but it's a delightfully naughty rumor to spread around.
There's ghosts in the bar. Kate, who broke off her recent engagement, but still wears the ring (cheeky, that), claims she heard 2 strange female voices in the back room, turned around, still heard voices, but saw no strange females talking. Kate is no ditz, and looked genuinely freaked out about it when she told us. We theorized that if they were ghosts, they were dead hookers killed by the old owner. We simultaneously came up with this theory, as if dead hookers were the only obvious explanation. The more we talked about it, the more reasonable it seemed. So dead hookers, then.
Best argument yet. Against the NBA's new player dress code. It isn't like 7-foot-tall professional athletes can walk into Joseph A. Bank and buy off the rack. And it isn't like your average big-and-tall men's store is up to code. These superhuman freaks of nature need custom tailored everything. Imagine what a custom tailored suit for Shaquille O'Neal would cost. That's a lotta fabric. Yes, they can afford it, but as a result, the percentage of what they would spend on clothing is significantly higher than most people. Okay, that's still a shit argument. Never mind.
Music ID fess-ups. Until 1990, I thought someone other than Led Zeppelin did "Fool in the Rain". Can you blame me? Come on, that's the most un-Zeppelin sounding song ever. Keef could've swore AC/DC did "Sweet Child Of Mine". Keef's a country boy. It all sounds the same to him. Yes, Sara, Madonna did do "Into the Groove", not, um, Debbie Gibson. But at least we admit it. You know those people. "Oh, yeah. Great song. One of my favorite songs ever! (That's Queen, right? Or INXS?)" Does it matter whether Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg did "H to the Izzo"? Not really, no. But it keeps me in business.
It's been a lousy year. We were talking about all the misfortune our friends have suffered this year. Deaths, divorces, breakups, legal troubles, financial troubles, dismemberment, depression, miscarriages, losing jobs, getting transferred. The war is still on everybody's mind. The town just isn't what it used to be. People are getting older. Other people leave. There are less familiar faces than there used to be, or so it would seem. I suppose, to some degree, bars tend to be magnets for misery. But bars are also places to celebrate, and while there's been a few chances to do that this year, the way we saw it, misery has outweighed the celebrating 10 to 1. So we agreed that Thanksgiving and Christmas needs to get here and get gone, so that on December 31st, we can wish good riddance to the 0-5 and begin again with a clean slate. Keef summed up my thoughts on the matter:
"All of a sudden, whenever I see somebody I know in here, I flinch. I just brace myself, ya know?"
When we were younger, when we didn't know any better, I'd swear it was easier to roll with the punches. Or maybe we just didn't care. Maybe youth made us worry-proof. Our priorities were shockingly misguided, but our ignorance kept us in bliss.
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